Editor: And if you believe this, I’ve got a bridge to sell you in Baghdad. Checkout the comments on the original story – nobody else is buying it either. The key question: How did a man in a cave get NORAD to stand down?

Osama Bin Laden requested a satellite TV dish be installed in his Afghanistan hideaway so he could watch the September 11, 2001 terror attacks as they happened, according to his former bodyguard.

But the Al Qaeda leader was unable to get a signal in the mountainous terrain surrounding his base in Kandahar so couldn’t watch the two hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center in New York, claimed Nasser Al Bahri.

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The 37-year-old said: ‘He asked for satellite TV to be able to follow the bombing.’

Mr Al Bahri, who was known as Abu Jandal (The Killer), served Bin Laden for three years before being arrested in Yemen ahead of the 9/11 attacks.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

But he claims to know Bin Laden told his media chief Hassan Al-Bahloul: ‘It is very important that we are able to watch the news today.’

Bin Laden also instructed Mr Al Bahri to shoot him dead if he was on the verge of being captured by Western forces, the former bodyguard said.